


Names Are For Lovers, Aliases Are For Us

by seriousfic



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-20
Updated: 2016-06-20
Packaged: 2018-07-16 04:47:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7252798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seriousfic/pseuds/seriousfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When they first met, she was Natalie and he was Hector. Then Hawkeye and the Black Widow got to know each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Names Are For Lovers, Aliases Are For Us

Burn a cigarette hole in a map of Brazil; that's Hovitcan. Humanity's lone foothold in hundreds of miles of jungle, it looks like someone dropped a bomb and built a town in the crater. The place is a diamond mine. Since it's not in Africa, people who saw Blood Diamond can buy their rocks there and not have to worry about being responsible for killing Leo, but just because the money isn't going to warlords doesn't mean the locals are getting it. The corporation farms the job out to a local contractor, your typical junta strongman, and he works fingers to bone meeting quota. Just not his. Meanwhile, the stockholders keep their hands clean. Not everybody's happy, but enough people are happy that the people who aren't don't matter.

Clint landed in Brasilia on a jumbo jet and took a Cessna to Hovitcan. The flight from America had taken seven hours but felt like one, dozing off in first class. The Cessna ride is a two-hour flight that feels like an eternity, one of the engines seeming to sputter every few seconds like a game of musical chairs and the pilot is listening to Eminem. Clint rides it out, picturing his tombstone. "Here lies Clint Barton. Killed by travel agent."

They land on an runway the size of a track meet, nearly getting run off the airstrip by one of the corporation's fatass Boeings. Clint tosses the pilot a twenty and thinks about just hanging around until the Helicarrier was overhead, doing its rounds, to get picked up like a kid after school. For now, he has business.

He's not really the cool guy, always needing to be in a trenchcoat or a leather jacket, but the summer suit makes him feel like he should be playing croquet. It's tan and cotton, the jacket so thin he can barely feel it, but it does help with the heat. That had snuck up on him on the flight over, seeping in even with the wind rushing by. It's written all over the locals' faces. They have a uniform of grimy clothes; mud-splattered trousers and shirts that are sweat stains on top of sweat stains. He doesn't judge, it's better than he'd dress at their paygrade. He tended to go shirtless most nights, working at the circus, but that might've had something to do with Sally Bruckner watching.

His first stop is the bar. That's his only stop, really. Every other building is box housing, with enough women and kids buzzing around the muddy yards that he doesn't really want to know how many sleep to a house. The airfield also has some warehouses stamped down next to it, but those have guards walking the perimeter. In the daytime, so the 'local contractor' is playing hardball. Tracks with what Clint's read.

The bar is open-air, a roof and some poles and a floor and a bar. The proprietor is white, but he doesn't speak English. Clint has to cycle through to Dutch before he gets anywhere with him. The menu is some kind of soup, the home brew, and white wine. Clint is thinking of just going with some water and one of the power bars he brought, depending on how opaque the water is, when she comes in the door. A courtesy, given the lack of walls. She's a lady.

She's white, but she's been around long enough to get at least a light tan. Her skin has the coloring of bronze, pounded into armor. Hair red, which makes the coloring more impressive. Most of the gingers Clint knows burn in the sun like burgers at a grill. It makes him wonder if she's a natural redhead. Of course, any hair color would make him want to check if the carpet matches the drapes. She's that kind of girl. Same uniform as the locals, but the omnipresent sweat doesn't seem to come from her pores so much as mist over her and glisten. Her tanktop's just damp enough to hint at more than curves, and the buttondown shirt she's wearing over it is open, fluttering in the wind like it's wondering whether to give him that more-than-hint. He's still on her canvas pants and boots when she sits down next to him. It takes him a little by surprise. He's still got surgery scheduled to fix the broken nose that healed funny last assignment, and he's got a few stitches in his forehead from a sparring match that stopped being a sparring match when he said something funny about the other guy's mom. Well, funny if your mom hadn't run off with the butcher.

"Barkeep, a glass of wine. And one for the gentleman. On me."

So the guy does speak English. Of course, for her, Clint would too.

"Thanks." Clint wishes he still smoked. He's not the cool guy, but it would be damn cool to light up now. "Didn't figure this place for a wine list."

"Short list. Pinot Noir '97. Nordstrom swears by it." She accompanies the name with a little headflip up the mountain. There's a compound there, built so cleverly into a bluff that it's like it dug its way into the mountainside. The strongman's home.

"He doesn't have a wine cellar?"

"Nah. Likes to come downtown, slum it with the locals. You know yuppies."

"Not by choice."

She has something that passes for a laugh: a way of smiling with a bob of her head, with a noise deep in her throat that goes _Heh._ It makes him feel like he's passed a test. "Natalie Dyson."

"Clint Hector. So, what's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?"

"Not being nice." Their wine arrives. A glass appears in Natalie's outstretched hand like she's doing a magic trick. Clint has to get his set on the bar. "I do missionary work."

One look at her and he was ready to call it a miracle. "Bet you're good at it."

"I've helped a few people see Heaven." She sips. The lips could nudge Richard Dawkins to agnosticism. "And you?"

"The opposite, I think." He grins. "Auditor. One of our clients donates to a charity in the region. I'm here to make sure the money doesn't lose its way."

"Mmm." She nods, seems bored. Cover stories are supposed to do that. "Married?"

He leans his elbow on the bar to show off his ring finger: _No._ And says "You're a little forward."

"If I were forward, I would ask how big your cock is. But I've got a pretty good idea."

Wow. And the 'forward' bit was just supposed to be a line. "I guess I'll need to have a word with my tailor. These pants are just supposed to show off my ass."

"No. But you haven't flashed the five hundred dollar watch or the two hundred dollar sunglasses in your jacket pocket, so maybe you just think people dress that way. And the tennis shoes are a nice touch. Most rich guys would go for hiking boots, as if they're going to spend more than five seconds on the mud. And you've combed your hair over most of those stitches, so you're not trying to show off battle scars. I don't think you have that much to prove."

"Maybe I'm just good at my job."

"Yes. Auditing." She grabs his hand off the bar suddenly and her grip is warm, singularly warm, like a lighter just after the flame's gone out. Her fingertips trickle over his palm, his fingers, the spot where he doesn't have a ring. "Fine set of calluses. What calculator gave you those?"

"What Bible gave you yours?" he asks, because he's used to fingers a little softer, nails a little longer.

"Oh, the missionary bit? It's less a job. More of a position."

"Ah."

"The dating pool around here is somewhat limited. And Nordstrom doesn't like to share his toys."

He drinks. He could use it.

"This is usually the part where the guy tries to guess something about me," she tells him. "Sorry I gave away the hooker bit. I tend to think it's obvious. Like a smell."

"I can't get much of a read. But there's no smell."

"You're sweet."

"Tanline on your shoulder, though. Dry. You were wearing a bra, now you're not. That have anything to do with my ride?"

"We don't get a lot of visitors. You're not covered in sweat yet. Want to be?"

He raises an eyebrow. Sets his drink aside. "If I were in your line of work, I think I'd appreciate the conversation more."

"Think of it as a busman's holiday. You can eat me out, if you're feeling guilty about it."

"Sorry." That's not a line. He is. Not enough to do something about it, but… damn. "I have some business tonight."

"It's a stretch between then and now. We have time."

"We'd have to rush. You want me to rush?"

She smiles. It's hard to tell if she has a pretty smile or not. It keeps shifting. "Pity. I could've used the practice. When you've faked as many orgasms as I've had, it's good to remember what real one feels like."

She takes off. Sweat has her pants nursing at her legs. She took off her panties too. That's the kind of thing that would've impressed her if he'd noticed it. Or maybe it impressed her more that he didn't.

Clint finishes his wine. Shitty year.

* * *

It's a hike up the mountain; steeper than the surveillance photos prepared him for. The ascent he'd plotted has a guard hut smack dab in the middle. Guy has a dog. He's not gonna take out a guy with a dog.

So he makes his way up the north face, kinda wishing he'd disappointed Natalie and worn hiking boots, and gets up to a boulder overlooking the compound. It's perfect. The windows are lit up like Christmas trees, and Nordstrom's walking in front of them like he's running a shooting gallery. One look at him and Clint can see why Natalie faked the orgasms. He could give the guy a very not-little death at a second's notice.

But Nordstrom's not the target.

She's halfway into the compounds before Clint notices her. He suddenly sees a downed guard through a window in the east wing, blood still spreading from his half-decapitated head. Clint's eyes dart between Nordstrom and the east wing. He catches movement. A shadow on the roof that doesn't have a light source. Sleek, lithe, fast. It's there for a moment and then slips in a skylight. That's all he sees. She stays out of the windows. But some of the lights turn off on the way to Nordstrom.

Clint moves in. He's already got a zipline set up with sky-rope. He's briefly visible against the night sky, flitting down, but if the guards were that good, they'd know their boss was about to stop signing their checks. Then he's down, on the roof of a satellite building, and the main building's just a hop and a skip away when he feels eyes on him. One of the guards. No time for an arrow; Clint lunges at him, hits him while his scream is still just a noise, and finds a convenient rock on the ground to bash his head against. And the girl got through no problem. She's better than him. And he thought she'd be crude, just because she didn't have anonymity.

In the window, up the stairs, another guard, stuffed in the closet, Nordstrom's sleeping chambers. There's a girl on the bed. Not Natalie; blonde, and Clint has no desire to see if it's natural. He's seen enough track marks. Her chest is rising and falling shallowly, and the dart in her neck says it'll keep going at that rate if a rock concert opens next door. Widow.

The next room, Nordstrom's private office. Clint puts his ear to the wall. Nordstrom's begging.

"I'll triple whatever they're paying you! I'll strike against Hallenback before he ever knows you failed your assignment! No one will ever know you're here."

Whatever gun she uses, it's advanced enough that Clint doesn't even hear the dropped-pillow sound of a silenced gunshot. Just the body hitting the floor.

He cracks the door. She's putting her mark on Nordstrom, the Widow's Mark, carving a lipstick imprint into his cheek with a scalpel. The bodysuit is the one from the file, but it's zipped up to her neck—can't be comfortable in this clime. And the mask is all leather, a bondage thing, covering everything but her eyes. The thought strikes Clint: even if she wanted to say yes to Nordstrom's offer, she couldn't. That's crazy, though. She's an independent contractor. No one to go to bat for her. That's why SHIELD's taking her off the playing field.

She knows he's opened the door, of course. It didn't make a sound, but she's stopped making her mark and changed her grip on the scalpel, ready to throw it. "That was a good deal to pass up," he says. "You know he was good for it."

"I work for bad men," the Widow answers, standing, turning before he can enjoy how tight the suit is overly much. "But not that bad."

"Yeah. Selling the villagers' kids into slavery when they can't meet their debt. I can see how that'd be a sore spot."

She takes a step to the right. He takes a step to the left. Her movements are casual. She's not threatened. He wouldn't be either, if he had her rep.

"So that's the rumor you're going with," she says. "The child soldier, raised from birth to be me."

"Another one I should know about?"

"I've heard them all. Immortal Tsarist. Grieving widow out to avenge hubby. Evil ballerina. I'm always Russian, though. It's odd. Do I really have that much of an accent?" She quickens her pace, he quickens with her, they circle each other. "When someone goes around killing a bunch of people for money, I always assume they're American."

He's got his bow in one hand and his arrow in the other. It's as much a threat as the fact that she hasn't handcuffed herself to a wall. "Zing," he says dryly.

"Thanks. I thought it was clever. I don't know if you've noticed, but if you're here to save Nordstrom, you're a little late. Maybe we should call it a night."

"I'm not here for Nordstrom."

"No. If you people started killing exploitative capitalists, you'd be in Washington, not south of the border."

"That's funny. When someone goes around talking like that, I always assume they're in college."

She stops. He keeps going, but slowly, making his way around her to the other side of the room.

"Nordstrom was a piece of shit," the Widow says. "You really going to die to avenge him?"

"The guards? Are they shit too?"

"They knew who they were working for."

He's behind her now. She doesn't turn. "And the guards in Madrid?"

She turns her head. Her eyes hit him with new force, and he almost notches the arrow just for that. "Well. Looks like I've got a fanboy."

"The way you dress, you're surprised?"

"You like?" She does a little pirouette, comes out facing him. Maybe the evil ballerina theory isn't far wrong. "I could get you one in your size."

"Nah. Doesn't show off the guns. Now don't get me wrong, I appreciate the conversation, but it's getting late. Come along quietly – yes or no?"

She smiles. He can tell, even through the mask. "Think I asked Nordstrom whether he'd stop selling kids?"

"Difference is, I asked."

"Yeah. You're dumb that way."

She moves, so fast he doesn't even have time to notch an arrow, a jumpkick he _does_ have time to duck. She hits the far wall, puts a crack in it, and he's got his arrow notched and he's letting go of the string and he actually thinks it'll be that easy when she catches it. The taser at the end shoots sparks at her face.

"Non-lethal," she says. "You're sweet."

No human could be that fast. No way. "You've got a little something extra, don't you?"

"Maybe. My boobs are real, though."

She launches herself at him again, handsprings into an ax kick that could've split him in two if he hadn't thrown himself to the side. He hits the wall and she's on him again, an elbow, a knee. The elbow cracks the plaster by him as he dodges, but the knee hits him in the stomach and he's surprised the rib doesn't go. She hits like a UFC fighter, but then she's throwing himself backward, dragging him along with her hands around his wrist, then she's on her back, her feet in his chest, throwing him along into a bookcase.

He hits and rebounds, rolls across the floor out of the way of the hardbacks falling down, comes up with an arrow notched. He fires without thinking and she dodges, but he hears a rip of leather and sees a stitch of white flesh in the darkness. Nicked her.

"You can put in your report that I'm enhanced," she says. "If it'll make you feel better."

"I'm feeling pretty good already."

"I can fix that."

She jumps to the side, kicks off the wall, grabs the ceiling fan, and ends up kicking him in the chest. He goes for a ride, falls over Nordstrom's desk and lets go of his bow on the way into Nordstrom's chair. Lets her think that's the end of it, but then he comes up throwing the paperweight he snagged from Nordstrom's workspace. He didn't need it anymore.

She had already let go of the fan by the time he threw and as good as she is, once gravity's got you, that's it. She twists, but the snowglobe hits her in the breadbasket. She lands doubled over and he goes for the bow, another taser arrow, but she kicks him in the chin as he gets his hands on it, wrenches her leg back to kick him again, then spins and uses her other leg. He flies back, but uses the bow to trip her up. When he hits the desk again, he's got an arrow notched and blood in his mouth. He lets fly, nothing fancy, just a regular arrow. She's in motion, but he hits her clean in the shoulder, and is rewarded with the sight of the fletching sticking out of her suit. She says something rude in Russian.

"You're good," he says, the speech calling the combat to a halt, giving her a chance to surrender. He doesn't like making pincushions out of people. "I'm surprised SHIELD hasn't offered you a job."

"SHIELD? That's who you're with?"

"Who else?"

"Well, with the bow and arrow, I was sorta expecting a Ren faire."

"I'm serious. Fury isn't above hiring—"

"Lots of men want me working under them," she interrupts. "The point is, I'm not."

And she's on him like a wolf savaging a chicken, just shaking him back and forth with lefts and rights. The pain must be killing her, moving her arm with an arrow stuck in it, but she's like a machine. He feels teeth loosen, cuts open, and it's a miracle that he gets his leg up and wrapped around hers, tipping her over, dashing her across the floor, heaving himself on top of her with energy he didn't know he had and landing with a hard right across her face. It twists her mask to the side, puts the eyeholes slightly off-center. She looks up at him, wild-eyed, and he can read the look. She's impressed.

Then, her eyes close. "Please. Daddy, don't—"

He doesn't trust her, doesn't trust this. He holds her down, a knee in her stomach, an arm across her throat, his free hand raised like a hammer ready to come down.

"Daddy, no…"

The zipper that occasionally glints between her breasts ends at her neck, meshed with the collar of the mask. He digs his fingers in, touches flesh, finds a clasp.

"Daddy, I'm a good girl…"

He pulls her mask up as far as he can. It's on tight, he's not sure how she breathes. He gets it over her jaw and the tip of her nose, sees blood caked in her nostrils and a bruise at the corner of her mouth and feels disgusted with himself. He didn't sign up for this. But he did sign up.

"Daddy…"

"If you were having a flashback, wouldn't it be in Russian?"

Her wimbling lips suddenly firm into a smile. "Finally. Someone paying attention."

Despite all the weight he has on her, she shoots up, kisses him hard and soft all at once. He feels himself grow hard in a uniform really not meant for that, feels the warmth of her body under layers of cold leather, tastes the blood in his mouth and isn't sure if it's his or hers. Then he feels a cool prick of electricity in his neck and goes limp. She levers him off of her, and he hits the floor still half-hard.

"Sorry," she says, tugging her mask back into place, and he has the ugly feeling she's sincere. "That was tricky of me. I guess I owe you a rematch." She holds up one of the bracelets on her arm. He thought it was just… he doesn't know what he thought. "Something for your report. That's my Widow's Sting. I had it set on low. You'll be up and at 'em in a few minutes. See? I can be sweet too."

He's up in two. By then, she's long gone.

* * *

"Leaving so soon?"

Clint looks away from the sky which should've had at least a dot-sized plane in it by half an hour ago. The airfield has a little shade courtesy of a few trees the bulldozers missed, and he's using it while Nordstrom's competitors move in. They were in the woods.

He looks away and sees Natalie. She's wearing at least a bra this time. He feels a little bad about noticing that first off, but he's also a little relieved he's noticing anything, the way he feels.

"Business done."

She joins him in the shade, and out of the sun, her skin seems to glow. All the warmth still on it, like a sun-baked street just after sunset. "No more charity?"

"What makes you say that?"

She raises an eyebrow. He can't, with his eye swollen shut. "Well, someone didn't take what you had to say very well."

Maybe it's her. She's about the right size, the voice is similar. But she's got no wounds. So maybe the Widow really does have something extra. Or maybe she's really a hooker with a heart of gold who just missed her sugar daddy getting taken out.

It doesn't matter. He's not the type of agent to Gitmo someone on a hunch.

"Nordstrom's dead. His men wanted to know who did it. As the new guy in town, I had some pointed questions coming my way. I told them I was just a tax man. I don't think they were going to beat me up before that…"

She gives him a sympathetic coo. Real cool.

"What do you use the money for?" he asks.

"What?"

"The money. I assume Nordstrom pays in cash; you're not a stamp collector, right?"

"Right."

"So. If you wanted, you could just work with the high rollers in Vegas. I'm not a connoisseur or anything, but I imagine a woman who looks like you can name your own price. Instead, you're down here, with Nordstrom, and I'm sure you know how dangerous a guy like that can be. He must make it worth your while. So. Natalie. What's all that money for?"

"Security," she answers after a moment. Like she had to think about it.

"You couldn't just… find someone to keep you safe?"

"I had someone. He's gone now."

"And you don't want another one."

"Towards the end, I had some input in him being gone. It went that direction."

"I'm sorry."

"Not worth feeling sorry for."

He looks at her. She's beautiful. When she was seducing him, interrogating him, she was a goddess. But this is just a woman. And the way she looks when she's not being a goddess is—haunting. It's like watching a painting burn. It's like seeing a statue crumble. The woman becomes the widow. He supposes it happens in every love affair. You become the widow or you become the corpse.

His fingers with those bowstring calluses caress her cheek and hold her chin and turn her head. She opens her jacket in offering, letting it slope down her shoulders to give him an unencumbered view. Daring him to read her. She's challenging in her placidness, waiting to become whatever he does to her. Slap her, she'll take it. Hit her, she'll hit back. Fuck her, she'll moan.

She's either the Widow or the kind of woman the Widow came from. There's one way to be sure, because there's only one Widow.

He kisses her. It tells him nothing, but the way she kisses him back tells him everything, soft and hard, a hand in his hair, another at his carotid artery, ready to pinch it shut if this is a game, because with her it's _always_ a game.

"Black Widow," he says against her lips, and thinks this wouldn't be such a bad way to go.

She doesn't kill him. She doesn't do anything. She holds him there, in her deathgrip, and he lets himself be held.

"I can change my face," she says. "My voice. Everything about me."

"I know. I've had it done myself."

"They did good work."

"Thank you."

The buzz of the plane finally comes. The dot grows on the horizon.

"If I let you live," she says, "it doesn't mean anything. Everything in your report, someone knows."

"Alright."

"This is usually the part where the guy tries to guess something about me." Her eyes are begging.

"It wasn't your father. You wouldn't have said Daddy. In Russian, it's Papa. But your mind went there first, when you were panicking, which meant it was someone."

"I wasn't panicking." She was trying to tell him something. "His name was Ivan. And he didn't. But he wanted to." She blinks. Her fingers tighten, reminding herself he's still dead to rights. "Do you have any idea what it's like, being in the care of someone who… wants to?"

"No."

"I see men as they really are. Bundled-up collections of lusts and envies. They crave ownership. Is that what Fury wants from me?"

"He wants you neutralized. But I have discretion. It's my case."

"I gave myself over to a man once. I thought it wouldn't be so bad to be owned. His name was Alexei. He was my husband." She smiles. Cries. "I'm the Widow now." He wipes her one tear away. She watches it glint on his fingertip. "I'm sorry. I've been doing this for a really long time. It gets to you, doesn't it?" She lets go of his throat and stands. Back in the sunlight. "Your ride's here."

It's true. The sound of the plane is almost overwhelming now.

"I'm going to stay awhile," she says. "See who I am when I'm not on assignment. See what a place looks like when it should be in my rear-view."

"If SHIELD knows, they'll send someone." He corrects himself. "More someones."

"You won't tell. You think you own me."

"I don't."

"You own a piece of me. You think I showed you something I don't show anyone else. That you know something no one else knows. That you're special. You really think that because we didn't sleep together, we have something different from the people I do sleep with?"

The plane touches the runway, the shriek drowning out their meager volume, and taxis away from them, toward the end of the runway. Where the sunlight is too hot to stand and there's no shade.

Clint sits there. She's still looking at him. She hasn't given up. "I think the ones who made you would want you to think that. That men, people, are just wants and needs and they don't care about anyone else, because that way it's okay that Ivan and Alexei didn't care about _you_. But they also wanted you to think you were just a weapon, a whore. You're not that either."

She looks at him. Closed off now. Maybe he's given her what she'd asked for or maybe she's resolved herself to never getting it. "You should've slept with me. I don't think you'll get another chance."

Natalie walks off at an easy, loping pace, like they'd just exchanged a few pleasantries and hadn't said anything really at all.

* * *

For three months, nothing. Clint checks on Hovitcan when he thinks it won't rouse suspicion, but if Natalie's still there, she really is lying low. A comet lands there and the AP reporter doing the story mentions getting a comment from a redheaded American. She had seen the comet all the way down, as it burned up in the atmosphere, as it struck the earth and knocked down trees for a mile. She said it was beautiful.

* * *

He's called to Fury's office. Routine, except Hill isn't there. Clint always gets nervous when Maria wasn't present. She's Fury's number two, on paper at least, his link to the Council. If there's something he doesn't want her to know about, it's something he doesn't want the Council to know about.

"Black Widow has the HYDRA weaponry," Fury says. He gets up from his desk and circles around it, to point at the chair in front. "Sit."

Clint does, surprised, shocked, but not showing it. Fury's been after HYDRA's old weapons for years. They've been chasing rumors of an old cache found in Berlin and hitting the black market since last August.

"She's giving us first crack at it. She wants immunity. Given that she hasn't killed any US citizens that we can prove, I'm inclined to give it up."

Clint nods.

"She also wants a job."

"A job?"

"She's offering her services. Seems to think we're hiring sociopathic enemy agents with kill-counts in the double digits. You know where she got that impression?"

Clint shrugs. "You hired me."

"You think you've pulled half the shit she has? I don't care about some small-time vigilante bull. Play psychologist. Tell me if she's for real."

Clint resists the urge to shrug this time. "I think she just wants a place, sir."

"A place."

"Yes, sir. She's not like us. She doesn't have a cause. But I think she wants one."

"Have you taken a look at the world? She has her choice of causes. AIM would love to have her, and they wouldn't look at her resume half as hard as we're doing."

"We're not AIM."

"We're not Mayberry PD either."

"Sir, do you want my honest opinion whether to let her in?"

"Probably not, seeing as I already said yes."

That surprises Clint. He drops back in his chair.

"SHIELD's a fledging agency," Fury continues. "We don't have a 9/11 like Homeland Security. We wanna sit with the big boys and _stop_ our 9/11, we need to prove we've got pull. And turning the Widow is the biggest proof I can think of. It's a goddamn coup. A honest-to-God, flaming-bush miracle."

Clint blinks. "Was that the point? Sending me out there without a specific kill-order?"

"I knew you'd have a soft spot for stray dogs, given your brother. I knew she wasn't a true believer, the damn irredeemable headcases that think they can solve all the world's problems with a bomb vest. And hell, I read her file, thing's a goddamn sob story. Maybe I just got misty."

Clint stands, his legs a little wobbly. He doesn't know why. "I think it's a good call, sir. She's a valuable asset. Good peoples."

"Yeah, glad you feel that way. You'll be working with her." Fury tosses a file Clint's way. It hits the desk, staring up at him. "Rendezvous in Budapest, she's already on-site, gathering intel."

"So, just for argument's sake, it's on me if she goes crazy and starts killing people?"

"You think I hand out kill-orders whenever I feel like it? You made the call, now live with it. And see if you can flip Madame Hydra next time you're out. Pull that off, we might get a second Helicarrier."

Clint picks up the file. "Thank you, sir. Will do," he says, holding back the sarcasm.

"Hawkeye," Fury calls on the way out.

"Yeah sir?"

"She said to tell you her real name is Natasha."


End file.
